


Of Patriotism, Invention, and Mysticism

by bisexualamy



Series: Howard Stark: Conflicted Jew [1]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Backstory, Captain America: The First Avenger, Character Study, Childhood, Coming of Age, Gen, Golems, Great Depression, Jewish Character, Jewish Comics Day, Jewish Howard Stark, Parent-Child Relationship, Period-Typical Antisemitism, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-10 16:26:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6995077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualamy/pseuds/bisexualamy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Golem (n) - (from Jewish folklore) a figure artificially constructed by a human being and endowed with life, often with the purpose of providing protection</p><p>Before Howard Stark was known across the nation both as a heartthrob and as a genius, he was a small Jewish boy living on the Lower East Side, listening to stories he'd carry with him as he shaped his legacy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Lower East Side

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this post](http://bisexualamy.tumblr.com/post/131294209034/mcumeta-i-grew-up-on-the-lower-east-side-my) and [this post,](http://bisexualamy.tumblr.com/post/144204497914/newredfic-ameliarating-damnsmartblueboxes) both of which convinced me that Howard Stark absolutely has to be Jewish. All of the information about Golems came from my own religious education as a Jew and my personal research. I really got a kick out of doing this, especially because my grandparents speak Yiddish and I want to try to keep the language at least a little more alive. This is also written for Day of Jewish Comics.
> 
> Vocab (in order of appearance):  
> pogroms - refers to "riots" in Russian, but was more specifically a condoned "wiping out" of Jews in Russia and other Eastern European countries  
> bubbe - literally refers to a grandmother, but can colloquially mean any older Jewish woman  
> tichel - a head scarf observant Jewish women typically wear after marriage  
> meshuga - literally means crazy, colloquially can also mean absurd or ridiculous  
> Rebbe - Yiddish for Rabbi  
> Hashem - literally meaning "the name" in Hebrew, Jews sometimes use this word to refer to G-d in casual, non prayer settings  
> zayn shtil - be quiet  
> Shabbos - the Jewish Sabbath, the weekly day of rest  
> shul - Yiddish for synagogue  
> farmach dos moyl - shut up/shut your mouth  
> Yahrzeit candle - a mourning candle; in the event of a primary relative death the candle lasts for a week  
> Shiva - the mourning practice for a dead family member or friend, typically lasts a week

If you asked him, Howard Stark would tell you he was a true, red-blooded American, born and raised in the great state of New York, and full of patriotism in his heart.  And he wouldn’t be lying.  In 1917, he was born in a small town in New York, and soon after, his parents picked up their lives and moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, looking for a better life.  He’d heard what he considered a cliché tale a thousand times: years before their son came into the world, his parents picked up their lives and immigrated from Russia, fleeing the pogroms.  Them, like so many other Jewish immigrants the early 1900s, saw the United States as a place where they could live free of religious persecution, and like those hundreds of thousands of immigrants, they soon realized how conditional this truth was.

In his neighborhood on the Lower East Side, Yiddish was as common as English.  Howard couldn’t go a day without as bubbe in a tichel telling him and his friends off for whatever recent stunt they’d tried to pull.  Like clockwork, she’d then threaten to call their mothers if they kept it up, all without a word of English passing through her angry lips.  Soon, a day without someone shouting after him, calling him meshuga and warning him that he wouldn’t amount to anything, felt like a day wasted.

But leaving the sheltered confines of that neighborhood showed a different story.  His father sold fruit and his mother sewed shirtwaists in a factory, not by choice, but by necessity.  Even though his father had been highly educated in Russia, working towards a job in engineering he would never end up attaining, and his mother had the quickest wit Howard knew, the Americans didn’t care.  What they saw were migrants, and Jewish ones at that, deserving of the last pick, the bottom of the barrel of employment, and barely any protection.  It didn’t matter what you could do overseas, not when you barely spoke English and subscribed to a faith that would put you on the path to damnation.

Now, from dawn until dusk, Howard knew which streets to find his father on, peddling whatever fruit was in season.  And, despite the recent laws banning mandatory ten or twelve hour days for female factory workers, his mother continually worked overtime to help support her family, because her regular wages simply weren’t enough.  Both their payments were meager, and week after week they barely scraped by, but young Howard Stark didn’t notice.  He knew that he shared a room with two other boys from two separate families, and that their three families all shared a tenement so they could afford rent.  He knew that sometimes there just wouldn’t be enough food on the table, but he never realized that there could be so much more.

For years he stayed within the few blocks he known since he could walk.  All he needed was within those confines: school, small shops, and friends.  As he went through elementary school, he mastered English in a perfect American accent, and later, would stay up until his parents got home to show them his perfect times tables.

“I’m going to be the biggest genius this world has ever seen!” he would declare to his parents proudly.  “I’ll be like Thomas Edison and invent the next telegraph and lightbulb, or I’ll be like President Coolidge and run the country!”  He’d then pause, looking at his parents beaming faces, not realizing that they were just as worried as they were proud.  “Or I’ll be like Dad was and be an engineer.  The best engineer in the whole world!”  And they knew he would be, if he could break through the glass ceiling with enough force to make the world listen to him.

But, despite the fact that school was where he excelled, his favorite place was home with his mother on Friday nights, the one night she couldn’t bring herself to work overtime.  Those nights, she’d tell him the folktales and legends her parents told her when she was younger.  He never knew his grandparents, but they lived in his mind along with their stories, and he could picture every detail of them.  His grandfather was tall and thin, with a gray beard and wise eyes, and his grandmother was round and always wore patterned dresses, and she’d bake him treats when he visited, always insisting he was skin and bones.  Howard liked the stories about family members he never met, old family myths and traditions, but his mother loved the Jewish legends about the Rebbes of the Old World back across the Atlantic, and stories of angels and prophets.  When she wasn’t in the mood to talk about her family’s past, she’d entertain her son with stories of things he couldn’t quite believe.  Her favorite was a story about a Rebbe from Prague who brought a clay man to life to protect his community against slander and violence.

“...and the Rebbe, once he’d built the Golem, inscribed Hashem’s holy name and put it in his mouth, bringing him to life-”

“Mama, I thought last time you said the Rebbe encircled the Golem seven times and spoke a passage from the Torah to bring him to life.”

_ “Zayn shtil! _  Who’s telling the story, Howard?”

“...you are.”

“That’s right.  Now, where was I?”  At this point his mother paused, making a show of finding her words.  Howard was lying in bed, listening to his mother talk from a chair she’d pulled up next to him.  “Oh, I remember.  The Golem was a tireless servant, fighting to protect and defend the Jews of Prague from those who wanted to hurt them.  He required no food, no water, and no sleep, just that he be inactive every Shabbos, like any other Jew.  For months, the Golem served as a protector, keeping all of the men, women, and children under the Rebbe’s care safe from harm, until one day, they no longer needed him-”

“Why, Mama?”

“Because the people who wanted to hurt the Jews realized we didn’t pose the threat they thought we did.  Then, they stopped trying to hurt us.”

“Why would anyone want to hurt us in the first place?”

This caused his mother to stop for more than her average thoughtful pause.  She paled slightly at his question, but kept her composure and answered, “there are some people that don’t understand that we just want to live our lives in peace, Howard.  They think because we’re different we must want to hurt them.  But never forget that when others want to keep you down, that’s all the more reason to keep pushing forward.  You deserve your dreams just as much as anyone else.”

“Well, that’s okay, Mama.  This is America, not Prague.  No one wants to hurt the Jews here.  That’s why you and Dad left Russia.”

His mother smiled, brushing the hair away from his eyes before saying, “you have so many questions in your head that you’ll forget to sleep.  Now quiet and let me finish the story.”

“I know the ending already.  The people of Prague no longer needed the Golem, so the Rebbe deactivated him one final time and put him in the attic of the shul, and told all the people to never enter that attic anymore.  The Golem is still sleeping there in case the people ever need him again.  You’ve told me this story a hundred times.”

“Well then, what do you still need me for?  Tell yourself a bedtime story and go to sleep.  It’ll save me so much time.”  She then laughed and pulled the covers tighter over her son before leaving the room.

Years can go by that way, with stories and family and childhood optimism.  As Howard Stark grew older, passing year after year of school, he was starting to talk about the future like it was an inevitability and not a theory.  He was going to be the first in his family to graduate high school, no, college.  He was going to get some degree, any degree that suited the brightest possible future, and be top of his class.  He was going to make his parents damn proud of him, but most of all, he was going to show that it mattered less about where you came from, and more about where you were going.

When he was ten he saw a radio in a local pawn shop for half the usual price.  Bursting into the store, he asked the shop owner why the radio was only $35, and how long he thought it would stay unsold.

“Well,” the man said, chuckling at Howard’s eagerness.  “It’s $35 because it’s a broken radio, and I really don’t know how long it’ll stay here.  I was surprised to get a radio, even a broken one, but I still don’t see many people around here with $35 to spare.”

That was all Howard needed.  He ran out of the pawn shop, back to the tenement, and to his room.  There, stuffed under his mattress, he took out a brown paper bag with all $5.35 he’d saved up over the years, doing odd jobs for neighbors and waiting for something special to catch his eye.  It wasn’t nearly enough, but maybe with a little help, it could be something.

Outside on the steps he saw one of the two other boys from his tenement.  Rushing over, he called, “hey, Frank, would you like a radio?”

Frank turned around, confused, and watched as Howard sat next to him and opened up his brown paper bag.

“I’ve got $5.35 here, and there’s a radio in the pawn shop for $35.  I was wondering if you’d like to donate to the cause.  We’d share it, of course.”

“A $35 radio?” Frank asked.  “What’s the catch?”

“It’s broken, but you see-”

“Howard, you want me to help you buy a  _ broken _ radio?”

“I can fix it,” Howard said confidently.

“Do you have any experience fixing radios?” Frank asked.  “Have you ever even  _ used _ a radio?”

“Once or twice, in electronics stores before they realized I couldn’t buy anything and kicked me out.”

“Howard-”

“But it’s okay!” Howard assured him.  “I’ve got engineering books I’ve picked up, loads of them, and lots of issues of  _ Popular Mechanics _ too!  I can figure it out, don’t you sweat that.  Right now, what you should be sweating is all of the other people that are going to want that radio if we don’t buy it first.”

“What would I even do with a radio?”

“Lots of stuff!” Howard exclaimed.  “We could put it in our room and listen to the radio plays and the music, and hey, maybe they’ll even have the baseball games on there soon!  And you can find out what’s going on in the world.  Wouldn’t that be amazing?  We can hear all about what’s happening across the country, or in Europe!  There are so many things to do with a radio.”

Frank paused, evaluating his options, before he sighed.

“Well, I don’t have $30,” he said.  “But I do have $4.42 under my bed.  I’ll grab it and think of who else we can ask.”

Two hours later, Howard and Frank had tracked down the other boy that lived in their tenement, half the kids in their elementary school class, and a few kind neighbors who thought it was nothing short of a miracle that all the local kids were working together for a common cause.  After they’d amassed $37.23 (Howard claimed it wasn’t a bad thing to have a little insurance money), a small army of kids walked into the same pawn shop Howard had charged into earlier.

“Hello, sir,” Howard said to the pawn shop owner, who was trying very hard to not show is amusement.  Howard held up the brown paper bag full of coins and bills and said, “we’d like to buy the radio.”

That afternoon was a Friday, and after Howard triumphantly brought the radio back to his room in the tenement (after assuring all of the neighborhood kids that they’d see the marvel again just as soon as he got it working), he spread out every technology book and magazine he owned in front of him.  On his search for cash he’d encountered a few neighbors with no money to donate, but who were still willing to loan him screwdrivers and wire cutters for the project.  He had a scanty toolbox, but it was something.  Hours flew by as he poured over every bit of information he had about radios, itching to pry the thing open but not willing to risk the one opportunity he had by letting his impulses cloud his judgement.  He was so engrossed that he didn’t realize the sun was going down until he his mother shouted, “Howard, come into the kitchen so we can light candles!”

Barely paying attention to anything outside of his small world of wires and knobs, it wasn’t until she entered his bedroom and said, “Howard, don’t make me ask you again,” that he looked up.

“What, Mama?” he asked.

“Come into the kitchen so we can light the Shabbos candles,” she said, her eyes surveying the mess her son had made in his room.

“Can we do it in a minute?” Howard asked.  “I just think I figured out-”

“What is more important than Shabbos, Howard?” his mother asked, crossing her arms.  Howard, not understanding that this question only had one correct answer, began to explain about the radio when his mother cut him off with, “nothing.  There is nothing more important right now than the Shabbos candles, so come into the kitchen.  You’re not even supposed to work on Friday nights.  Your father and I come home early just to do this.”

“But Mama, this radio, once I fix it-”

“You’ll do no work tonight, just like the Torah says,” his mother insisted.

“Don’t you see?” Howard exclaimed, knowing it was best not to argue with his mother, but failing to understand why this mattered so much to her.  “Do you know how many more opportunities we could have with a radio?  Do you know what it would mean if I fixed this all by myself?  This  _ is  _ important.  Just as important as Shabbos, if not more-”

“Farmach dos moyl!” his mother shouted.  “There is nothing more important than your Judaism.  Don’t you forget that, Howard, ever.  You’ll have nothing if your life has no spirit, even if you have all the radios in the world.”

Startled by his mother’s outburst, Howard got up off the floor and walked into the kitchen, sulking.  He stood next to his father as his mother lit the candles and muttered the blessing along with the other families in the room, but he felt a bitterness he’d never felt before.  Why did being Jewish matter so much, he wondered.  Why did any religion matter in America?  Religion was something Americans kept tucked away, far from business or politics, and he was an American after all, so he was going to tuck his Judaism away too.

By Monday night, after hours of work that day and the day before, Howard tested the radio for what felt like the four hundredth time.  Expecting to hear discouraging silence or, at best, a few bits of crackling static, he instead heard what seemed to be the faint end to a nightly news broadcast.  At first, he couldn’t quite believe it, but when he finally came to his senses, he practically knocked the radio over trying to get to the knobs.  If he could tune the radio to the correct station, that’d prove that he’d fixed it.

Sure enough, after a bit of finagling, the broadcast came in clear as day.  He let out a shout so loud his parents came rushing into his room.

“Howard, are you hurt?” he heard his father call as the two of them came through the doorway.

“No, listen!” he said, pointing to the radio.  It took each of them a few seconds to understand, but when they did, his mother gasped and his father broke out into a smile.

“That’s my boy,” he said, going over to ruffle Howard’s hair.  “You keep this up, and you’ll be an engineer one day.  Just like your father.”

News spread quickly about the Starks, their radio, and their genius son.  Soon, neighbors and local shops were asking him to come by after school, offering up pocket change for him to take a look at their broken electronics.  The Stark residence became a social hub for the whole neighborhood, as sometimes over twenty people would gather into a room to listen to special broadcasts or radio plays.  A year went by, and life seemed to be finally picking up for the Stark family.  Howard could already picture his future graduation in vivid detail, and despite their grueling jobs, his parents always had something to look forward to when they came home.

Then, October 29th, 1929 came.  In a day, the United States when from flying high to freefalling as the stock market crashed and the country plunged into the Great Depression.  Suddenly, people stopped spending so much money on fruit and new shirtwaists.  His parents were lucky enough to not lose their jobs completely, but their hours were slashed, and with that came lower wages.  A fourth family had to move into their tenement so everyone could keep paying the rent, and Howard’s odd electronics jobs became less of a hobby and more of a necessity.  The extra money he earned went straight to rent and food.  Gone were the days where he could save up any extra earnings to buy more broken electronics to take apart and study.  Gone were the days of combing through bookstores looking for any new editions of technology manuals.  The Great Depression didn’t just force twelve-year-old Howard Stark to become a man, but it forced him to become a breadwinner along with his parents.

No one expected the Depression to last more than a few months, so when it became one year, and then started to near two, Howard began to believe he’d never see the end to his family’s financial troubles.  Finding comfort in the routine of school, work, and home, he forced himself to only think about the future at night, when he’d lie awake in bed and picture the same college graduation he’d had in his head for years.  He saw the degree he’d hang proudly in a frame above his desk, his parents crying in the audience, and his smile, wider than any other student there.  The Depression will end, he told himself.  Soon, this will all be over, and I can get my life back on track.

Late August, 1931, felt hotter than it actually was.  The concrete of the city and the crampedness of school and home made the heat practically unbearable for fourteen-year-old Howard Stark.  To this day, he still couldn’t remember what the date was, but he knew it was a Friday, because his mother warned him that if he came home late for Shabbos again, he wasn’t going to hear the end of it.  He’d tried to argue that picking up jobs was more important than being home for candle lighting, but she’d given him such a verbal beating about the importance of tradition that he thought it wasn’t worth the extra few dollars.  He could also say that an hour before school ended, he noticed faint sirens out the back window, and wondered if it was a fire or a medical emergency.  He hadn’t considered that it was both.

There was a small crowd gathering on the steps outside his tenement when he made it home.  They weren’t making any sound beyond frantic whispers, and as Howard pushed his way past them, he saw his father standing at the center of it all.  When he father saw him, he reached out to put a hand on his son’s shoulder, trying to steal a private moment in the midst of the crowd.

“Dad,” Howard asked.  “What’s going on?”

“Howard,” his father said with a shaky voice.  It was then Howard noticed his father had been crying, “there’s something I need to tell you.”

His father sat him down on the steps, and in a voice as steady as he could manage, his father explained to him that his mother’s shirtwaist factory had caught on fire in the heat.  The building was cinders, and many of the women had escaped, but after the ambulances and firefighters arrived, it was clear she hadn’t made it.

“The other women said she spent her energy helping to get them to safety,” his father said.  “Your mother was so good, so kind-”

At that point he couldn’t stop himself, and Howard saw something he never would’ve believed if he hadn’t been there: his father crying.  The man broke down into sobs, letting his head collapse into his hands.  Howard, on the other hand, was numb.  There had been a shirtwaist factory fire in 1911, but he was taught in school that they had started regulating factories after that.  He learned later that due to the Depression, his mother’s factory didn’t mean fire code standards, but they couldn’t afford to update it, and the women had stayed for the money.  It didn’t make sense to him, and it certainly wasn’t fair.  His mother, who’d always believed in Hashem’s good judgement and kindness, who’d worked to be the best possible version of herself, was dead?  That seemed too chaotic, too out of place for the ordered, godly world she had believed in.

The crowd stayed for hours, members of it coming to comfort him and his father, or going to check on their own families.  Soon, the sun started going down, and his father said, “please, no more.  She wouldn’t have wanted us to miss Shabbos, even for this.”

Reluctantly, the neighbors left, and Howard and his dad walked back into the tenement.  A woman from another family lit the Shabbos candles that night.  The following day, his father purchased a Yahrzeit candle, and dutifully sat Shiva for his wife.  There was no funeral because they never could identify her body.

Then, one evening, a few months later, his father collapsed in the street while selling fruit.  It took forty-five minutes for someone to call an ambulance.  After the doctors finally arrived and checked him over, they said he had a stroke and died on the sidewalk.  For weeks after, Howard had to listen to the neighbors’ pitying whispers about how they thought his father just worked himself to death, and how “poor Howard Stark would have to live all on his own now.”  When people asked Howard about the subject years down the line, after he made his fortune, he always treated it with a solemn smile and said, “my mother was the last thing he had left from the Old World.  When she died, well, he loved her so damn much, I think he died of a broken heart.”


	2. A Stone's Throw From Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided that for full sentences that are supposed to be in languages other than English I'd just write them in English and denote which language they're supposed to be in. It lets the story flow better, and I don't trust Google Translate with full sentences. Anything that could stay in its actual language though, I kept.
> 
> Vocab (in order of appearance):  
> danken Gott - thank G-d

When his father died, Howard Stark was barely three months into his freshman year of high school.  As soon as he could see the future he’d dreamed about since elementary school, that high school diploma he wanted so badly, his world started to come apart at the seams.  The other three families in his tenement offered to pick up the extra cost of the rent so Howard could keep living in his home and focus on his education, but soon the guilt got to him.  While he still attended classes, he spent long hours after school fixing and upgrading electronics to contribute something towards the cost of rent and food.  Soon, he began ignoring his homework assignments in favor of taking on even more jobs.  After all, he was passing his exams with flying colors, and that was what mattered the most.  Why did he need homework if he learned the material on the first try?

Still, his grades started to slip.  While math was still his favorite subject, it lost its spark.  Algebra no longer excited him like it used to, and forget about English or history.  As his motivation for school steadily declined and his motivation to work grew stronger, Howard soon realized that his path towards a diploma was not only going to be tougher than he initially expected, but perhaps the incorrect path for him in the first place.  Sure, it was his childhood dream, but life had changed.  Maybe if his parents were still alive he could stay in school and graduate, but he needed to make a life for his own now.  He couldn’t stay put out of loyalty to what was now a fantasy.

The few blocks on the Lower East Side that used to feel like home now felt like a cage.  While he used to enjoy fixing other people’s radios and washing machines, now he felt like a handyman neglecting his larger purpose.  He was trapped in a cycle of school, rent, and food, and couldn’t stand it, watching as his temper grew even shorter than his ever weaning patience.  

One Friday night he came home especially late.  When one of the women asked well-meaningly why he hadn’t come home early for the Shabbos candles, he snapped, “what does it matter?  Do those candles pay the rent?”  He then stopped, hearing his mother’s voice in his head, clear as a bell, scolding him for both disrespecting an elder and neglecting the tradition of Shabbos candles.

“Do you think you’re so important that you get to decide when to do thousand-year-old traditions?” she chided.  “Do you think you’re more important than Hashem, who decides when the sun goes down?”

It was then that he knew he couldn’t stay any longer.  Out of respect to his parents he finished out the school year, knowing they wouldn’t want him quitting his lessons halfway through, but as June arrived and New York City began to grow hot with the summer sun, Howard Stark packed his life up in one suitcase, thanked the families that had cared for him in his parents absence, and left the only home he’d ever known two months before his fifteenth birthday.

For the past few weeks he’d set aside a bit of his earnings towards his new future, and he felt bad about it, but not bad enough to forget the whole thing.  By the time he headed down the front steps of his tenement for the last time, he had enough money in his pocket for a month of rent in some new tenement.  He’d also been scouring the classifieds for weeks, looking for any job he could jump at.  So far his pickings were slim, but he didn’t let this discourage him.  He deserved a chance to climb the American ladder as much as the next person, a chance to grab onto a piece of the American Dream and hold on for dear life, and nothing was going to take that away from him.

He knew he couldn’t afford to leave the Lower East Side completely, not with its cheap rent and easily accessible shops, but he had to get out of his neighborhood.  Twenty minutes away from his block might as well have been a completely different world, and once he left the Jewish neighborhood and found the Italians and Germans, he was surprised they could even call this the same Lower East Side.  The clothes, the shops, the languages that accented the air, they all felt similar, but not quite familiar enough for him to ever call this place home.

He wandered into a grocery store, looking for something to buy for breakfast, and was amazed to notice that he couldn’t recognize half the food on the shelves.  Everything had names so foreign that he felt like he’d stepped into a different country, not just several blocks away from where he’d grown up.  In the end, he bought an apple for a nickel and left feeling more disoriented than when he came in.

As he walked down the street, trying to take in his new potential surroundings and looking for one of the tenement addresses he’d found in the classifieds, he heard an angry shout and a bang coming from an electronics store to his right.  Howard, mustering every bit of confidence the young teen had in his body, rushed in, put on a concerned face, and asked, in that perfect American accent, “are you hurt?  I heard someone yell.”

Inside was a young man in his late twenties fiddling with a newer looking radio.  He pushed his dark hair out of his eyes before turning to the boy that just ran into his shop.

“No one’s hurt,” he said, but his tone was resentful.  “Nothing’s hurt except my business.  I can’t get these damn radios to stop breaking in the heat.”

He sighed and put down his screwdriver, banging his fist on the display table again and swearing in what sounded to Howard like Italian.  Howard studied the shop owner for a moment, trying to get a feel for what kind of person he was.  He was tall and on the thinner side, wearing tan pants and a white button-up shirt, whose sleeves have been rolled up to his elbows in the heat.  Aside from letting the Italian slip in his anger at the state of his business, Howard would’ve never guessed that this man came from an immigrant family.  That was the kind of person he wanted an in with. 

The man wiped a bit of sweat off his brow before realizing that Howard was still in his shop.

“What do you want?” he asked forcefully.  “I told you, no one’s hurt.”

“I don’t want anything,” Howard said, putting on his most innocent smile, “except to help you.”

“Help me?” the man asked.  “What can you do to help me?”

“My parents had a radio when I still lived with them,” Howard said.  “That thing used to break if the wind blew the wrong way, so I got good at fixing it.”

“You think you can fix this piece of junk?” the man asked.

“No,” Howard said.  “I know I can.”

The man chuckled disbelievingly, looking between Howard and the broken radio.

“You’ve got ten minutes,” he said, “and I’m gonna stand right here and watch you, so don’t try anything.”

Confidently, Howard went to the broken radio, picked it up, looked it over for a minute, and then unscrewed the back panel.  After a few minutes of examining the inside of the machine, he fiddled around with the wires, blew away some dust, and screwed the panel back on.

“There,” he said.  “All fixed.  You try it yourself so you don’t think I’m tricking you.”

The man scoffed, but figuring he had nothing to lose, turned the radio on.  To his amazement, once he tuned it, the morning news broadcast came through the speakers clear as day.  He looked back at Howard, who was smiling smugly, and shook his head incredulously.

“What is your name, kid?” he asked.

“Howard, sir.  Howard Stark.”

“Stark,” the man repeated.  “Is that German?”

Howard didn’t take half a second to think before lying.  “Yessir,” he said with pride in his faux heritage.  He could somewhat understand German from the Yiddish he knew growing up, after all.  It certainly wouldn’t be enough to fool a real German, but an Italian?  That was more probable.

“Of course it is,” the man with a laugh.  “You Germans, always so good with electronics.”  He paused, looking at Howard for another second before saying, “I’m Angelo, and I own this place, but I could use a guy like you to fix things up when they break down.  Plus, you’ve got a cute, young face.  Gets people through the door.  You interested?  I’d pay you.”

It seemed a little too auspicious that on his first day into the world a job would fall into his lap, but he knew his mother would disagree.

“Danken Gott!” she’d say.  “Hashem has smiled on you for being such a good boy.  Take care not to take that for granted.”

And he sure as hell wasn’t going to disappoint the man upstairs.

“Damn right I’m interested!” Howard said. 

“Good,” Angelo said.  “You start now.  I’ve got three more radios in the back that I thought were beyond saving.  Prove me wrong.”

“Yessir!” Howard said, rushing to the back to look at his next project.

Angelo lived in a tenement a block down from his electronics store.  After Howard had a full day of fixing radios and cleaning up the shop, Angelo clapped his hand on Howard’s shoulder and asked, “so, kid, where d’you live?”

Howard hesitated, not wanting to say where he came from, but not sure how to articulate that he’d just made it to this part of the city.  He didn’t have to say anything, however, because Angelo filled in the blanks for him.

“Oh, I see, you’re one of  _ those _ kids,” Angelo said, and Howard realized he was implying that Howard was homeless.  “Damn shame too, with how talented you are.”

Howard decided to play along.

“That’s right, sir,” he said, “but I’ve been saving up rent money doing odd jobs, and I have just enough now for a month’s rent somewhere.”

He jingled the coins in his pocket as proof.

“You don’t say?” Angelo said.  “Well, my landlord’s got a spare room somewhere in his building, I’m sure, what with the Depression and all.  Why don’t I see if I can vouch for your character?”

Howard beamed.  He followed Angelo down the street to his tenement, where sure enough, with enough needling, Angelo was able to convince his landlord that Howard was an upstanding citizen deserving of a place to sleep (and it didn’t hurt that Howard had that month’s rent upfront).  Within an hour, he was lying in his own bed, in a room of his own for the first time in his life.

Howard was never one to love the mundanity of stability, but he took to routine when it engrossed him.  Fixing electronics was something he not only knew, but enjoyed, and after two months of working for Angelo, the man began to let his young employee have a bit more freedom.

“Say, I’ve got a few spare bits and bobs in the back,” he said to Howard one day.  “All of it comes from old radios and things that I never could repair.  The stuff practically useless, but you like to build things, don’tcha?  You can have them, if you want.”

Howard didn’t need to be told twice.  After work he’d take whatever spare electronic bits Angelo would give to him, and spend the hours he was supposed to be sleeping staying up building things.  His first machine took his several weeks, but when he finished it, he proudly brought it into work that morning.

“What’s that?” Angelo asked, eyeing the hodgepodge of metal and screws.

“It’s an electronic top, see?” Howard asked.  He switched the contraption on, and it began to spin around like the children’s toy, except it didn’t run out of energy and drop.

“It’ll spin for hours, and look!”  He took a remote out of his pocket and began to control the top’s movement, having it spin while moving from side to side.

“I’m working on making it spin counterclockwise too.”

“That’s nice, Howard,” Angelo said with a chuckle, “but I thought you had a job to do.  Put that thing in the back and go make sure everything’s in order before we open.”

Howard switched the top off, picked it up off the ground, and went to the back.  Still, Angelo’s disinterest didn’t discourage him.  His boss was still letting him take spare parts home, and as long as he had the materials, he was going to keep building.

Four months into working for Angelo, an older woman wearing a tichel wandered into the store.  Howard knew a bubbe when he saw one, and he kept his eyes diverted as he cleaned up behind the counter.  He didn’t recognize this woman specifically, but one Jew could easily pick out another in a non-Jewish neighborhood.  Unfortunately for him, the woman approached the counter and rapped her knuckles on it to get his attention.

“Excuse me,” she said in heavily accented English.  “I come to this neighborhood to buy from German market,” she paused, searching for her words in a language that she was still learning, “but home, I need-”

“You need to get home?” Howard asked.  “Are you trying to get back to the Jewish neighborhood?”

“Jewish, yes,” the woman said, pointing to herself.  “I need-”

“Go down that way for about five blocks,” he said, pointing to the right.  “You’ll pass a market, and then-”

“Blocks?” the woman questioned.  “Sorry, I-”

Howard sighed.  He wanted this woman out of here as soon as possible.  Not only would she be bad for business, but she’d be very bad for his shoddy cover story.  Looking around for Angelo and realizing he was in the back, Howard took a risk.

“Leave the store and take a right,” he said in Yiddish, speaking quickly.  “Walk straight for about ten minutes until you pass the kosher market, and then you should be able to figure out where you are.”

The woman lit up when she heard Howard speak in a language she understood.  She leaned over the counter and kissed his cheek before saying, “such a good boy, you are.  Nice, Jewish boy.”  She then looked over his shoulder and said in English, “this good boy, you have,” before leaving.  Howard turned around and, to his horror, saw Angelo standing there smirking.

“You’re Jewish?” he asked.  Howard paled.

“...yes,” he said hesitantly, fearing the worst.  Angelo could fire him for lying, and there would be nothing Howard could do about it.

Instead, Angelo broke out into a smile.

“I should’ve known,” he said.  “You talk like a Jew.  You’re smooth.  You can sell things.”

Howard wasn’t sure if he should take this as a compliment when Angelo continued.

“With your help, we could expand business tenfold!  Get those old Jewish grannies and their penny-pinching husbands to buy our radios.  I never even considering trying to get customers in the Jew district-”

“Sir, I don’t think they can afford-”

“What are you talking about, Howard?  They save every dime they got!  You should know that, seeing as you grew up there.  With a ‘nice Jewish boy’ behind my sales counter, well, they won’t be able to say no.”

He laughed before going into the back again.  As he walked, Howard heard him mutter, “a Jew, Christ.  Never in my life would I have guessed.”

Things felt weirder with Angelo after that.  Howard was already considering looking for an opportunity to upgrade his employment (after all, he didn’t want to be stuck for years in the same job), but the stability of working for Angelo paired with his access to raw materials had left Howard feeling mostly indifferent towards the idea of job hunting.  Now, he had one foot out the door.  He felt Angelo treating him differently, not letting him lock up the store at night by himself, or sometimes even making a snide comment towards Howard in passing.  Then, one morning, Angelo had one of the radios tuned to the morning news.  Over the speakers, Howard heard the anchor mention something about a technology expo in Midtown Manhattan.

“What’s that about?” Howard asked innocently.

“Some engineering conference the city’s hosting,” Angelo said, not looking up from the newspaper he was reading.  “I think the country’s still on a high from winning the Great War.  Thinks that since Europe’s having its own internal troubles we can pass them in industry, but it’s a toss-up if you ask me.”

“Do you mind if I go?” Howard asked, his excitement causing him to blurt out the question with an eagerness he didn’t intend.

“To the conference?” Angelo asked, finally looking up.  “Why would you want to go there?  How would you even get in?”

“I could sneak in,” Howard said, “and if I go, maybe there’ll be some cheaper stuff for us to sell.  Y’know, an investment we could make.”

“We sell radios, Howard,” Angelo said, shaking his head.  “We don’t make investments.”

“But think about it!” Howard urged.  “If we get some fancy new piece of tech, it might not stand the test of time, but people will jump on it if we say it’s the next up and coming gizmo.  And we’d be the only people selling it!”

Angelo paused, thinking this over, before saying, “alright, you have one day off to check out this conference, but this investment’s coming out of your pocket.”

“Yessir,” Howard said, already halfway out the door.  “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

He hadn’t actually asked Angelo for the day off to better stock the shelves of the store.  In fact, if all of this worked out, he’d never have to work another day at that store again.  Angelo had been good to him, a decent friend for most of the last five months, but he wasn’t going to stay tending a shop for the rest of his life.  He was going to be one of the greats, and the first step towards fame and fortune rested with one of those engineers at that conference.

It took Howard under ten minutes to run back to his room, stuff a bag full of his best inventions, and make his way towards the nearest trolley station.  A short ride later, he was in Midtown Manhattan, blocks away from the expo.  It was easy to locate the building.  Motor cars were lined up by the dozens along the road as he got close, and by that point signs were everywhere.  As he got closer, it looked to him like anyone who was anyone in technology and engineering was attending this conference, based on the cars and suits people were wearing and the security.  Guards were lined up at every entrance checking passes.  There had to be some kind of military demonstration happening in there, Howard reasoned.  That was the only justification for such a strict guest list.

Surveying the scene, his eyes were on the lookout for any way in.  Thinking he’d have better luck away from the road, Howard ducked around to the back of the building, staying out of sight, until he saw several large carts with food in them sitting outside the staff entrance.  Immediately, he knew this was his way in.  Rich people never did anything without an ostentatious amount of food.

He approached the back entrance with a confident that said that he had a right to walk through it, when he was stopped by a guard.

“Hey,” the man said, nearly twice Howard’s size.  “Pass please.”

“Oh, I’m just making a delivery,” Howard said.

“Pass,” the man repeated, “or no entrance.”

Howard sighed, looking dejectedly at the ground, before saying, “listen, I’m got here a big sack of potatoes from my mama’s market.  We’re really struggling with the Depression and all, and well, when Mr. Grant, he’s a good friend of ours, asked if we could supply the potatoes for this event, we were thrilled.  He must’ve forgotten to give us a pass.  Please, you gotta let me in, sir.  My mama will be heartbroken if I come back with all potatoes and no money.”

“Mr. Grant?” the man asked.

“He’s one of the organizers of this event,” Howard said, praying that this guard didn’t check with the staff or ask to see what was in his bag.  “But he and my mama said I had to go straight from the market to the expo, because potatoes go bad in the heat, sir.  And the sunlight, that’s the worst thing for them.  They grow in the ground, you know, and the sunlight makes ‘em go green.”

The man looked around for a moment, presumably for a supervisor, before saying, “alright then, kid, but make it quick.  No funny business.”

“None, sir!” Howard exclaimed, rushing into the building before the guard could change his mind.

Once inside, it didn’t take long for Howard to find his way from the back to the showfloor of the expo.  Now, if he could just avoid anyone who might have a clue he wasn’t supposed to be there, he’d be fine.  As he wandered the showfloor, he couldn’t help but stare in awe at some of the marvels of engineering around him.  To his left was an airplane, and to his right was an improved internal combustion engine for a new generation of cars.  Down further he saw machines and gadgets beyond his wildest dreams.  Never in his life had he even come close to technology like this.

He was so caught up in the displays that he didn’t notice the man coming up behind him, that is, until he grabbed Howard’s arm.  Startled, Howard looked up to see that one of the exhibitioners had dragged him aside.

“What are you doing here, kid?” the man asked.  He was wearing a suit worth at least four month’s rent at Howard’s tenement, stood at least two heads taller than the boy, and had sandy blonde hair.  “Because you certainly don’t belong.”

“I-” Howard froze, but realizing he could turn this misfortune into an opportunity, swallowed his nerves and said, “I’m here to make a pitch.”

“A pitch?” the man repeated.  He smiled doubtfully.  “Who’ll listen to a pitch by a kid?”

“Loads of people, once you hear what I’ve got to say,” Howard said.  “See, what people like you need, sir, is the inventor’s spark.  The Edisons, the Bells, the Franklins, they weren’t bogged down with deadlines and mass demands.  They had time to let their genius develop.  What someone like you needs is someone new, with radical ideas.  Someone who looks at something impossible and says, ‘hey, we can work with that.’”

“And you’re saying you’re that guy?” the man asked, though it was clear he was only humoring Howard.

“I am, sir,” Howard said.  “I’ve got the brains to come up with the unexpected and the engineering chops to make it happen.  Look.”

Out of his bag he took seven of his best inventions, all made of spare parts and screws from Angelo’s shop.  Some flew, some drove, some spun, some were remote controlled and others were automatic.  One could even sense when it was nearing an obstacle and stopped itself.

“I made these by myself,” Howard continued, “and I could make more, if given the chance.”

The man was clearly impressed, but he came back to his senses quickly.

“These are toys,” he said to Howard.  “What use do I have for toys?”

“These are all made of spare radio parts, sir,” Howard said.  “With more time, money, and resources, I could make things far beyond toys.  It would be in your best interest to hire me.”

“Oh really?” the man asked.  “Why’s that?  Because you have ‘radical ideas?’  Because you’re overconfident enough to sneak into a technology expo and expect that no one would kick you out?”

“Because if you don’t, someone else will,” Howard said.  “You may want to disregard me, but you can’t disregard talent.  If you don’t snatch me up, someone else will, and in the end, they’ll be the ones getting rich off my talent.  That’s what I have to offer you, sir.”

The man paused, mulling this over, before calling, “hey, James.  Take a look at this.”

Another man came over, looking slightly frazzled after handling other, invited patrons of the expo.  He was shorter than the first man and had darker hair.

“What, Robert?” James asked.  “Don’t you see that we have people to deal with?”  He began to gesture back to the patrons at their booth, but stopped when he saw Howard.  “Who’s this?”

“Some kid who snuck in here,” Robert said.  “He’s making me a pitch.”

“Christ, Robert,” James said, exasperated.  “Throw him out!  We have better things to do than listen to some kid.”

“That kid invented all this stuff,” Robert said, gesturing to Howard’s gizmos, still running.

James paused, looking at the various flying and driving objects, before pointing to Howard and asking, “that kid?”

“Yeah, and he’s got a good pitch too.  Says if we don’t hire him, someone else will snatch him up.  He thinks he can inject some life into our business.”

James looked from Robert to Howard, then back at Howard’s inventions.  One of the objects spun over and tapped his shin.

“How old are you, kid?” James asked finally.

“Almost sixteen,” Howard said.

“You look older,” James said.  “Bet you could pass for eighteen.”  He then looked back at Robert and said, “you think this is a good idea?”

“What’ve we got to lose?” Robert asked with a good-natured shrug.  “We hate him or he doesn’t prove useful, we fire him.  Where are your parents, kid?”

“Dead,” Howard replied.

“Perfect, then you’ll have no one to complain to if we fire you,” James said.  He then sighed and said, “alright, let’s do it.”

Robert smiled, clapping James on the back.  He then shook Howard’s hand and said, “welcome to Thomas, Edwards, and Company, kid.”


	3. The Original Genius Millionaire Playboy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this fic turned out to be four chapters instead of three, but that's good for everyone who's liked it so far! Look for the last chapter tomorrow.
> 
> Vocab (in order of appearance):  
> shehecheyanu - a prayer Jews say when they have a new experience

For the first time in his life, Howard Stark had a commute.  Out of necessity he still lived in a tenement on the Lower East Side (doing his best not to have awkward run-ins with Angelo on his way out the door), but Thomas, Edwards, and Company was located in an industrial complex in Midtown Manhattan.  Every morning he’d take the trolley to work, and every night, if he was lucky enough to catch the trolleys before they stopped running, he’d take it back.

His days were long, sometimes fourteen hours or more, but he didn’t mind.  Finally he wasn’t fixing other people’s electronics, but building the future.  And, on top of it all, the pay at a real company was much fairer than it had been working for Angelo.  At last, instead of working paycheck to paycheck, he could afford to put a little money aside towards something bigger.  Within a few months he’d moved out of the Lower East Side completely and set himself up in an apartment closer to work.  The rent was nearly eight times anything he’d ever paid for housing, but the apartment was the nicest thing he’d ever laid eyes on, and it was  _ his. _  He’d never seen such a kitchen before, and never slept in such a comfortable bed.  If only the people from his childhood tenement could see him now.  If only his parents could’ve had this.

Thomas, Edwards, and Company did largely independent projects, but like any company worth its salt in the engineering business, it had some proverbial eggs in the military’s basket.  These contracts were where the money was, and at the beginning Howard wasn’t allowed near them.  Instead, Robert and James put him in charge of coming up with some “radical ideas” to bolster their sales with the average civilian.  Getting someone working a standard factory job to invest in technology during the Depression seemed like an insurmountable challenge, or at the very least a test by his new employers, but Howard took his assignment as a recognition of his personal genius.  It was his goal to work tirelessly to prove to Robert and James that they not only made the right choice when they hired him, but that they needed him.  

He had a glorified broom closet in one corner of the complex for an office, but to him it felt like a castle.  Soon, the windowless walls were covered with pinned up designs for potential products, and finally, after what felt like two days of forgetting to sleep or eat, he emerged from his broom closet triumphantly holding schematics.

“Mr. Thomas, sir,” he said, marching into Robert’s office.  He was about to keep talking when he looked at the man behind the desk and saw Robert glaring at him while talking on the phone.

“Yes, George.  Thanks, George.  Okay, bye now,” he said, before hanging up the phone and giving his full attention to Howard.

“Howard,” he said with a smile that definitely didn’t read happy, “you can’t just burst in here.  There are protocols.  Chains of command, if you will.”

“You see, Mr. Thomas,” Howard said.  “It’s just that you’re the one who hired me.  You know what I’m about.”

“Right now all I know is that you’re about bursting into places you don’t belong,” Robert said.

Howard chose to take this comment as deadpan humor and continued.

“Just one minute, Mr. Thomas, and I’ll be out of your hair.  I’ve just got the schematics here for the product you wanted me to design-”

“That’s nice, Howard,” Robert said.  “Make me a prototype and then we can talk.”

“That’s all well and good, sir, but I’ll need materials for that.”

“Go down the hall,” Robert said, dialing another number on his telephone.  “Burst into James’ office for a change and tell him I sent you.  He deals with more of the ‘hands on’ parts of the business.”

It was clear that his conversation with Robert was over, but not letting that deter him, Howard marched down the hall to James’ office, and, thinking he’d get off to a better start than he did with Robert, knocked this time.

“Come in,” he heard James say, sounding slightly overwhelmed.  It seemed to Howard that James was always in some state of both occupied and disorder, unlike Robert, who usually had a handle on things.

As Howard walked into James’ office, he saw papers everywhere in various piles and strewn across the floor, uncapped pens in various stages of drying up on every surface, and several half-empty glasses of water.  Somewhere in the next room, a phone was ringing.  When James finally looked up to see who had knocked he said, “oh, come in, Howard.  Did Robert send you?”

“Yes,” Howard said.  “He said I should talk to you about getting the materials to make a prototype of my new design.”

“Design?” James asked.  “Design for what?”

“You asked me to come up with a useful, cheap product that the working class would want.”

“Oh, that’s right,” James said, running a hand through his hair.  He then saw the papers Howard was holding.

“Are those schematics?” he asked.  Howard nodded.  “Hand them over,” James said, taking them out of Howard’s hands.  He looked over what Howard had drawn up, but his eyes began to glaze over when he realized he had no idea what half of Howard’s diagrams meant.

“You think you can build this, kid?” James asked, handing the schematics back to Howard.

“Give me the materials I need and I’ll show you I can,” Howard said.

James tossed him a ring of keys and said, “these unlock the storerooms in the basement.  Anything you’ll need is in there.  Make a note of how much you take and sign it out on the clipboard on the back of the door.  You’ve got two days, Stark.”

Howard didn’t need to be told twice.  He immediately thanked James and went down to the storeroom. Within the hour he was back in his office with better materials than he’d ever worked with, and more tools than just a screwdriver and a pair of wire cutters.

Making the prototype was more fun than Howard ever had in recent memory.  It brought him back to the first radio he fixed, sitting in his bedroom pouring over issues of  _ Popular Mechanics. _  He was so involved in his work that it took one of the cleaning staff on his night shift reminding him of the time to break his concentration.

“Mr. Stark, it’s well past midnight,” he said.

Howard shook his head.  “I can’t stop now, not when I’m this close.”  He paused, looking at the man before saying, “do you guys have twenty-four hour delis around here?  Or a supermarket?”

One quick sandwich trip later, Howard was back in his office tweaking the prototype.  He kept working for hours, not realizing the sun had come back up, and when James stopped by to see if Howard had found his materials alright the day before, he saw Howard facedown on the table, fast asleep.

“Stark!” he called, waking Howard up.  “Stark, did you stay here all night?”

“I just wanted to finish,” Howard said through a yawn.  He looked at the prototype sitting on the table and said, “and I think I did.”

He gestured to the device sitting on the table.  It looked like a small speaker with a camera lens attached to the back.  Certainly not sleek enough to sell, but intriguing nonetheless for something a fifteen-year-old made in a day.

“What is it?” James asked.

“Think of it as the machine every player piano wishes it was,” Howard said.  “You use this lens to take a picture of any piece of sheet music, and this thing will play it for you.”

James scoffed.  “That’s ridiculous!” he said.  “You can’t turn an image into a sound.”

“Watch,” Howard said.  He grabbed a crumpled piece of sheet music that was nearly falling off the table and took a picture of it with the machine.  It whirred for a few moments and then, to James’ amazement, Beethoven’s Fifth began playing over the speakers.

“That’s amazing,” James said.  “How does it work?”

“I modified the camera lens so that when it takes a picture it recognizes black-on-white contrast as empty space,” Howard said.  “Then it was a matter of getting the internal mechanism within the speakers to get those empty spaces to correspond to different notes.  It’s still having issues with different keys but-”

“You know what, I changed my mind,” James said.  “I don’t care  _ how _ you did it, just that you did it.  Come to Robert’s office with me, and bring that.  We have to show him this.”

When James and Howard barged into Robert’s office, he was busy signing off on new materials orders.  After hearing the sound of his door practically flying off the hinges, he looked up to see his business partner and his newest hire breathing heavily from their run from Howard’s office.

“Where’s the fire?” Robert asked.

“No fire,” James said, “just this.”  He gestured to the prototype in Howard’s arms.  “Show him, Howard.”

Howard put the machine down on Robert’s desk and ran the same demonstration for his other boss.  As the speakers poured out Beethoven, Robert’s eyes grew wide.

“You think we can sell this?” he asked James.

“Depending on how low we get the manufacturing costs, I think the first batch could be on shelves within a few months, and gone within weeks,” James said.  “Escapism is the new thing.  Just look at the popularity of motion pictures.  If we get this thing down to the price of a radio, we could give those guys a damn fright.”

Robert let out a satisfied laugh and asked, “Stark, did you make this?”

“Stayed up all night, sir,” Howard said.

“Atta boy!” Robert said, clapping him on the back.  “You’re going to show the boys downstairs in manufacturing how to make this contraption, and James, see how fast we can patent this.”  James and Howard were about to leave when Robert said, “wait, Stark, tell me one thing first.  What do you call it?”

Howard stopped, having never even considered that the machine would need a name.  After a minute of thought, it came to him.  He smiled and said, “it’s called a Personal Pianist.”

Within months the Personal Pianist was the latest technological craze, and with its newfound popularity came fame for Thomas, Edwards, and Company.  Investors started coming to Robert and James making proposals, and the military contracts kept getting bigger and bigger.  Howard Stark quickly rose in the ranks of the company despite his age, and by the time he was nearly seventeen, he was one of the supervisors for most of Thomas, Edwards, and Company’s military deals.

Robert and James also found him to be a regular sweet-talker, both for business and pleasure.  With the company’s sudden fame, Howard Stark got an unexpected spotlight.  Who was this young genius behind not just the Personal Pianist, but so many other inventions?  And how had Robert and James managed to find such young, raw talent?  Newspapers began to call him for interviews, then radio programs wanted some airtime with him, and soon Howard Stark became the accidental mouthpiece for Thomas, Edwards, and Company.  It wasn’t long before his bosses were sending him to conferences, both because he always seemed to be two steps ahead of the latest technology, and because he was the man they all wanted.

In May of 1934, Robert got a call from one of his overseas contacts letting him know about a big international conference in Geneva, Switzerland.  Like usual, he ran the news down to Howard along with information about his tickets, passes, and hotel, only to find that Howard respectfully declined the offer.  Shocked, Robert marched down to manufacturing, finding Howard having a heated discussion with one of the company’s top engineers.

“No, no, what are you doing?!” Howard exclaimed, grabbing a schematic and a pencil out of the poor engineer’s hand.  “If you divert the photons that way the whole thing could destabilize.  Where did you go to college?  Wait, don’t answer that, because I didn’t finish  _ high school _ and I know how to do this.”

“Howard!” Robert called.  Howard looked up from where he was furiously scribbling to see Robert motioning him away from the group of engineers.

“Just a second, boss,” Howard said, and was about to go back to explaining why these schematics were so very wrong when Robert said, “Howard,  _ now.” _

Reluctantly, Howard muttered, “I’m not finished with you yet,” to the engineer before walking over to his boss.

“Howard,” Robert said quietly.  “William must be mistaken, because he told me that you declined to go to the conference in Geneva.”

Howard paused for a second before saying, “nope, that’s right.  If those fancy guys across the Atlantic in their stuffed silk shirts think that they can beat good old American elbow grease, then they’re not worth my time, or yours, Mr. Thomas.”

“This isn’t about being worth anyone’s time, Howard,” Robert said.  “This is about expanding the company.  We could go global, as long as we know what these guys are up to.”

“So you want me to go to this conference for some corporate espionage?”

“If you’d like to call it that,” Robert said with a smile.

Howard thought for a moment before saying, “I don’t see why we need to do any sort of espionage, Mr. Thomas.  I already know we’re better than the Europeans.  We’ve got me.”

Robert put his arm around Howard, leading him farther away from the group of engineers that was pretending not to watch them.

“Listen to me, Howard,” Robert muttered, his tone getting harsher.  “You think because you invent a few things you suddenly run the place?  I’ve let you on a long leash, but I’m still your boss, and you’re still sixteen.  Don’t make me regret the kind of power I’ve given you.  Now,” he said, taking some pieces of paper out of his jacket’s inside pocket, “these are your plane tickets, hotel information, and conference passes.  Get yourself a passport, get on this plane to Geneva, and I’ll see you back in the States first thing next week.”

Howard looked from the papers to his boss before resigning himself to his new task and grumbling, “yes, Mr. Thomas.”

“Glad we understand each other, Howard.”

Howard had never been on an airplane before.  He’d gone to the Midwest, or even cross country for other conferences, but money and convenience dictated that a train was a much better option for those trips.  A trip to Europe, however, was a different story.  As Howard settled into his seat on one of New York’s finest commercial airliners, he felt a bit of nerves in his stomach.  It was funny, he realized, that he could tell anyone exactly how planes operated despite the fact that he had never flown in one, but even though he knew the kinds of safety checks that when into an operation like this, he couldn’t stop his own anxieties.

Suddenly, he had the thought that his mother would’ve want him to say shehecheyanu for this new experience.  He hadn’t prayed in years, but he heard his mother’s voice in his head, clear as day, saying that this show of good faith to Hashem would bless him with safe travel.  Still, the idea of speaking Hebrew in public was a bit much.  He didn’t want to make a spectacle of himself.  He was just considering if he could get away with muttering it under his breath when a pretty stewardess with blonde curls broke him out of his thoughts.

“Would you like something to drink, sir?” she asked cheerily.

Howard stopped, momentarily at a loss for words after such a string of thoughts, before coming back to his usual self.

“I’d love a coffee,” he said, flashing her a smile.  Then, he lowered his voice a bit and said, “can I tell you a secret?  I’ve never flown before, and well, I’m a bit nervous.”

The stewardess giggled.  “Well, that’s what we’re here for,” she said.  “Flying’s new for lots of people, and we’re here to make it more comfortable.”

“Well, you’re doing a helluva job,” Howard said.  “I feel taken care of already, and it doesn’t hurt that you’re certainly a sight for sore eyes.”

The stewardess blushed, smiling and shyly avoiding Howard’s gaze before saying, “I’ll go get you your coffee, sir.”

“Howard, please.”

“I’ll go get you your coffee, Howard,” she amended, before giggling again and rushing off to get the drink.

Howard was used to spending days on a train to get to California, so the fact that he landed in Geneva within twelve hours couldn’t help but impress him.  As he got off the plane, stepping into Europe for the first time in his life, he felt oddly sentimental.  His parents hadn’t come from Switzerland, only passing through it on their way to the United States, but he was closer to his roots than he’d ever been before.  He wasn’t interested in going to the now Soviet Union, even if they were in the business of letting American Jews freely cross the border, but somehow he felt more strongly that his parents were with him on this trip.

There was no time to explore the city, either.  As soon as he checked into his hotel he crashed, clothes and all, on top of the covers on the bed, and when his wake-up call rang him at seven the next morning, the front desk receptionist heard a groan and a click from Howard Stark’s room.

He was fully prepared for a day of being condescended to by European know-it-alls, telling himself that he’d try to bite his tongue if the battle didn’t seem worth winning.  However, when he got to the conference, he was immediately cornered by one of the Robert’s European contacts and friends.

“Howard!” the man exclaimed with a smile, going in to give him a tight hug.  Howard had forgotten exactly what this man’s name was, except that he had a thick English accent and an affinity for not respecting personal space.

“Good to see you again, sir,” Howard said.

“Howard, you have to meet my friend,” the man said, practically pulling Howard past rows of people setting up their tables.  “I think he’ll have something of interest to show you.”

Howard smiled unconvincingly.  This inevitably happened at every conference he attended.  Everyone wanted a boy genius’ stamp of approval.  When they reached the table Howard saw another man setting up displays.  He was graying, both in his hair and beard, wore round glasses and a hat like Howard’s father used to, and seemed to be so involved in what he was doing that he didn’t notice Robert’s friend practically knocking his table over.

“Dr. Erskine,” the man said.  At this, Dr. Erskine finally looked up.  “This is the boy I was telling you about: Howard Stark, from Robert and James’ company.  Right genius, this boy is.  And German too, of course, you’d know immediately from his knack for engineering.”

Howard paled.  He’d been keeping his Jewish heritage a secret since he joined Thomas, Edwards, and Company, and to a bunch of Americans saying he was German didn’t matter.  But this scientist was a real German.

“Oh,” Dr. Erskine said, studying Howard.  “What part of Germany does your family come from?” he asked in German.

Howard swallowed, able to pick up about three words in the sentence from his knowledge of Yiddish, but not nearly enough to respond.  His silence lasted only a moment before Robert’s friend cut in.

“I’ll let you two Germans get to know each other,” he said, laughing.  “Howard, you behave.”  He then clapped Howard on the back and walked away.

“You are not German,” Dr. Erskine said in English.

“Don’t spread it around,” Howard said quickly, looking to see if anyone else heard the scientist.  He then leaned in and, speaking quieter, said, “you think these Englishmen and Irishmen would let a Russian Jew near their companies?”

Dr. Erskine looked unconvinced.

“I did what I had to do to get ahead,” Howard insisted.  “That’s nothing worth shaming a man over.  If only you knew-”

Dr. Erskine cut him off by sticking out his hand for Howard to shake.  Howard took it skeptically.

“Dr.  _ Abraham _ Erskine,” the scientist said with a friendly smile.  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Stark.”

For the duration of the conference, Howard didn’t stay far away from Dr. Erskine.  He knew he was there for his bosses’ gain and not to make friends, but he found Abraham’s work fascinating.

“Now, I’m no chemist,” he said to the scientist on the second day of the conference, “or biologist, but I thought it was impossible to stimulate this level of cellular growth without all kinds of enzymes.”

“That’s the beauty of it, Mr. Stark,” Dr. Erskine said.  Howard saw how Abraham’s eyes lit up when he talked about his work, just like Howard couldn’t stop talking when someone asked him about one of his inventions.  “The whole serum operates as an enzyme, not only stimulating cellular growth, but making all cell processes operate many times their normal speed.”

“Amazing,” Howard said.  Then, after a brief pause, he asked, “what are you even calling this serum of yours?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Dr. Erskine admitted.  “I felt as though the work took precedence over the name.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong, doctor,” Howard said.  “You need a snappy name for everything you make.  That’s how you get people interested.”

“I think they’ll be interested based on the sheer force of what this can do,” Dr. Erskine said.

“Americans are lazy,” Howard said.  “They need to understand everything in a couple of words.  Here, try me.  Come up with a title.”

Dr. Erskine thought for a minute before suggesting, “the Multiphasic Enhancing Serum?”

Howard faked a yawn and shook his head.  “I understood all those words,” he said, “but I’m a genius.  Here,” he gave the idea another minute of thought before saying, “what about the Super Solider Serum?  It’s to the point, snazzy, and alliterative.”

“I’m not just interested in making soldiers, Mr. Stark,” Abraham said.

“Don’t tell the Americans that,” Howard said.  “Super Soldier Serum, consider it.  You can have that one free of charge.”

By the time Howard got back to Thomas, Edwards, and Company headquarters, he was raving about the conference in Geneva.  Robert and James found it profitable to keep sending him abroad, and soon, Howard Stark was a regular at many annual international engineering conferences.  He never saw Dr. Abraham Erskine at another one, but assumed the man was too busy making his Super Soldier Serum to bother leaving his lab.

As time passed and Howard grew older, he again began to feel stuck in his position.  Every few months he got new responsibilities at Thomas, Edwards, and Company, but they became more administrative and less hands-on.  He missed inventing and building, and would often take over entire projects himself, deeming the engineers to slow or flawed to keep up with his ideas, simply because he was bored.  Finally, in 1938, he realized he’d had enough.  He was done answering to Robert and James.

He started having meetings with potential investors, sending out a few feelers to see if there’d be room in the industrial market for a new company.  After most of the information returned positive, he’d made his choice.  A few weeks after his twenty-first birthday, he called a meeting with Robert and James.

“Is there a problem, Howard?” James asked as he walked into the conference room.  He was carrying a stack of order forms, looking through exactly where they could save on materials.

“Stark, I have a meeting with someone from the Department of Defense in thirty minutes,” Robert said.  “Is this going to be quick?”

“Should be,” Howard said.  “Depending on how you react.”

This stopped the two men.  James put down his papers on the conference table and said, “what do you mean ‘how we react?’”

Howard took a deep breath.  “I’m leaving the company.”

“You’re what?!” Robert shouted.  “You can’t just leave the company.”

“Yes, I can,” Howard said.  “I’m quitting, and I want to leave on amicable terms.  I’ve worked here since I was fifteen, and you’ve both given me amazing opportunities, but it’s time for me to branch out on my own.”

“And how do you suppose it’s going to look when one of our top administrators leaves our company?” Robert asked, still shouting.

“We could hold a press conference,” Howard said, expecting this argument.  “I could tell the press that I left to start out on my own.  No hard feelings, no creative differences, just that I’m at a new stage in my life.”

“You really think they’re going to buy that?” James asked.

“I can sell it,” Howard said.  “I’ve sold worse.”

“You’re an integral part of this company, Howard,” James said.  “How are we supposed to find someone to replace you?”

“It’s true.  I haven’t just put you guys on the map, but I made you a landmark,” Howard said, “but you’ll be fine without me.  You’ve got plenty of talented guys here, and many more that would kill to work for you.  You’ll definitely weather the storm on this one.”

There was a long minute of silence as the three men looked between each other.  Then, finally, Robert said, “you’ve made up your mind on this one, haven’t you, Stark?”

“Yessir,” Howard said.

Robert sighed.  “Alright, I’ll call the press.  Set you up outside at a podium first thing tomorrow morning, but don’t you let me down, kid.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”

The next morning, as promised, there was a podium set up outside the headquarters of Thomas, Edwards, and Company, along with a small army of reporters.  As Howard took the podium and cleared his throat, the crowd quieted.

“Today, I have made the decision to leave Thomas, Edwards, and Company,” he said.  Flashbulbs immediately went off in his face.  “I harbor no resentment towards my former bosses as they harbor no resentment towards me.  This split is simply a result of my personal decision to take my career in a different, more independent path.  Robert Thomas and James Edwards still remain good friends of mine, and I’m grateful for all the opportunities they’ve given me.  I’m staying on another few weeks to make sure I leave my position in good hands, but I plan to start my own company within the year.  Thank you, no questions at this time, please.”


	4. Project Rebirth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This last chapter has the most "rehashing of canon," so to speak, but I tried to keep things interesting. Anything that was spelled out in Captain America: the First Avenger I didn't feel a need to completely recreate. Most of my canon information is coming from the comic prequel to CA:tFA, but much of it was tweaked and/or expanded upon. This chapter is also much longer than the other ones, but I had a lot of ground to cover.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's supported this fic as I've developed it, especially to those of you who left such kind comments. It's been a joy to write and I'm so glad I'm not the only one who liked it. Happy Jewish Comics Day!
> 
> Vocab (in order of appearance):  
> Torah - the Jewish holy book

By 1939, the Stark Industries was open for business.  The public’s fixation with Howard Stark’s rise to prominence, along with him looking like the very embodiment of the American Dream, was not lost on investors, and the money flowed in almost immediately.  Despite having a reputation as a quite public figure, Howard kept his history very private, shifting the narrative away from his family’s less-than-savory background and more towards how that affected him in the present.

“My parents were European immigrants,” he’d say, keeping their country of origin intentionally vague.  He had a canned response to any question about his family, and dutifully kept to that script.  “But, I’m a New Yorker born and bred.  I grew up in Manhattan, and we were dirt poor.  My parents, bless them, worked day and night so I could go to school, giving me enough time to play around with broken radios, read tech manuals, stuff like that.  They were dead before I turned fifteen.”  At this point he’d solemnly shake his head and fight his mother’s Yiddish phrases sitting on the tip of his tongue.  He’d gotten rid of most of his childhood habits, but there was something about blessing the souls of the dead that had never left him.  

“After that, well, school wasn’t an option.  Good thing I’m so smart.”  Right then, as if on cue, the interviewer would laugh along with Howard.  “I dropped out after my freshman year of high school, got a job fixing radios, and soon found myself with Robert and James.  They’re good people for taking me in.  When other people saw a kid, they saw a genius.”  That sentence always got mixed reception for its odd combination of humility and arrogance.  “I had to claw my way to the top.  The truth of the matter is intelligence can only get you so far.  You have to work.  I think my parents gave me that trait.  They were the hardest working, most selfless people I know.”

Stark Industries had no clear original purpose other than to give Howard full control over both its operations and his own boredom.  With the sizable fortune he’d gained after Thomas, Edwards, and Company, along with many generous donations, he had a big enough budget to finance just about any pet project he could come up with.  Interesting gadgets, fun toys, even inventions more suitable as novelty items went from the conveyor belts of Stark Industries to store shelves (vetted by Howard, of course, who had to keep some of the best stuff all to himself).  He only had one rule: no military contracts.  Whether the government admitted it publicly or not, he knew the country was gearing up for an inevitable war with Germany, and he wanted no part of it.  Though it was a ban he kept unspoken, the press began to pick up on his distinct lack of military involvement.  When asked about it, Howard simply said that there were plenty of other, very qualified companies for the military to work with, and while he was open to the idea, nothing had really caught his eye as something compatible with Stark Industries.  In reality, he was more of the opinion that the United States government would suck both the life and fun out of anything he came up with.

As Stark Industries’ profit (and by extension, Howard’s own wallet) began to grow, Howard expanded the company’s research division, setting them on a task to find a material just as lightweight as steel, but much stronger.

“Make it, find it, I don’t care,” he said to the head of the research division.  “If we want to do bigger projects, we can’t rely on the steel industry to give us the materials we want a fair price, and this seems much more fun than investing in a steel plant.”

Months later, he received a call from his team.  They had discovered a rare, unbelievable metal in the Wakanda nation in Africa called Vibranium.  It was a third as light as steel, much stronger, and had the ability to absorb ricochets and vibrations.

“Get as much of it as you can,” Howard said to the team’s leader over the phone.  “Money isn’t an issue.  Just let me know the price before you commit.”

“It’s not that simple, sir,” the man said back.  “This stuff is incredibly rare.  I don’t think we can get that much, even with all our funds.”

“Just get enough of it so that we can run some experiments in the lab,” Howard said.  “I bet you with enough testing we can replicate this stuff.  No need for middlemen.”

When Howard’s men returned with admittedly not a lot of Vibranium, Stark Industries immediately got to work.  Howard had the best chemists and physicists he could find working to test and replicate the material, but after months of work and thousands of dollars of investment, they were still not producing results.  After realizing that the Vibranium experiments were taking away significant funds from other technological investments, Howard decided to approach the project from a different angle.  If he could get other, just as wealthy people invested in the idea of Vibranium, then they would fund his experiments for him.  And he knew just how to do it.

Within the month he was chartering a plane to Los Angeles for a showcase he’d set up at the new Ciro’s nightclub (because, hey, if he was going to ask for money, he was at least going to do it in style).  The club was packed at least an hour before Howard even arrived for the demonstration, investors and everyday people alike waiting to see what Stark Industries had in store for the world this time.  Finally, the lights dimmed and Howard, never one to half-ass his own theatrics, came out in a spotlight wearing one of his most expensive suits.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said.  “Steel is one of the greatest of human ingenuity.  With it, we’ve been able turn landscapes to cityscapes, build bridges across incredible obstacles, and even help men fly.  Today, I’ve brought with me a steel shield.  It’s about 2.5 feet in diameter, and half an inch thick.  Weighs about fifty pounds, but I can handle it.”

The audience laughed, and Howard made a show of his strength by picking the shield up and placing it against the back wall of the stage.

“I also have with me a semi-automatic pistol.”

Another spotlight lit up a table, where the pistol was lying.

“Ladies, you might want to cover your ears for this one,” Howard said, as he put on earmuffs.  Then, he took the pistol off the table and shot the shield three times at close range.  There were loud clangs as each bullet found its mark on the shield's surface.

Howard took off his earmuffs and picked up the shield.  The lights came up, and as he displayed its state to the audience he said, “see, it survived, but it’s pretty dented up.  Now comes the fun part.  Ladies!”

On cue, three women wearing short, sequined dresses and big smiles came out.  Two of them flanked Howard while one showed the audience a second shield.

“This shield is made of Vibranium, a new discovery by Stark Industries.  It’s only 17 pounds, so light that even Betty here can hold it.  Isn’t that right, Betty?”

“Yes, Mr. Stark,” the woman said cheerily.

“Alright ladies, that’s enough,” Howard said with a laugh.  “You three can go backstage now.”

The women left the stage, Betty handing the shield off to Howard before she went.  Howard placed the Vibranium shield against the back wall like he had with the steel shield, put on his earmuffs, and shot it seven times.  When he was finished, he put both the pistol and the earmuffs back on the table and proudly displayed the shield to the audience.  There wasn’t a scratch on it.

The crowd cheered.  Once they’d quieted down a bit, Howard said, “this is just a bit of what Vibranium can do, and with your investments in Stark Industries, we can make a helluva lot more of this stuff.  Thank you, good night everyone, and see Tom in the back if you’d like to hear more about helping us shape the future.”

As the applause followed him off stage, Howard only had a second to put the shield back in its storage box before hearing, “that was quite a display back there.”

He turned around to see an older man with big jowls and yesterday’s stubble gracing his face approaching him.  By the looks of his uniform he wasn’t just an army man, but an army officer.

“Colonel Chester Phillips,” the man said, extending his hand for Howard to shake.  “United States Army.”

“I gathered that,” Howard said, shaking the man’s hand but doubtful of his intentions.  “Listen, I’ve already told multiple people at the D.O.D that Stark Industries isn’t interested in taking on any military projects.”

“I’m just here to give you a bit of a history lesson, and when I’m done hopefully you can give me a ride home,” the colonel said.

“I’m not in the business of chaffering people around,” Howard said, “and I never did like history.”

“Well, hopefully I can change your mind.”

Howard studied his new acquaintance for a minute, sizing up just how likely it would be for him to give up asking, and realized it wasn’t a promising option.  Still, he made one last attempt.  

“It’s obvious you’ve gone to great lengths to get me to watch something,” Howard said, “but I’ll tell you now, Colonel, a piece of war propaganda isn’t going to convince me of anything.”

“Just give me five minutes of your time,” the colonel said.  “You got where you are by someone giving you a chance to make a pitch.  Let me make mine.”

Howard sighed.  He couldn’t argue with that logic.  Reluctantly, he followed the colonel to a back room where he had a projector set up.  The colonel rolled the tape, and flickering onto the screen came footage of a battle.  Howard was about to reiterate what he said before about war propaganda when the enemy began firing.  Their weaponry was beyond anything he’d seen before.  Fully automated and outrageously high powered, weapons at least ten years beyond what he’d help develop with Thomas, Edwards, and Company.  On top of that, it appeared that the soldiers had exoskeleton battle suits, which they were using to tear up a small town.

“What is this?” Howard asked.

“The enemy crushing rebels in a battle at Guernica, during the Spanish Civil War,” the colonel said.  “This, Mr. Stark, took place three years ago.”

“The Nazis have this kind of technology?” Howard asked, both amazed and skeptical.

“HYDRA, their former science division, does,” the colonel said.  “They went rogue a few years ago, because apparently the Nazis weren’t doing enough damage.”

The colonel switched off the footage.  He then turned to Howard and asked, “do I have your attention, Mr. Stark?”

“Yessir.”

“Then we have things to discuss, and I still need a ride home,” the colonel said.  

“Well,” Howard said, “I suppose I’ll show you to the car.”

Parked in the back was a black luxury sports car.  Colonel Phillips did his best not to say anything about this display of extravagance while the country was still coming out of the Depression, and instead tapped one of the windows with his knuckle and said, “you know, this dark a tint is illegal.”

“Who can tell at night?” Howard joked.  “Now, get in.  It sounds like you have a proposal for me.”

As Howard drove, Colonel Phillips began to speak.

“I’ve been tasked, straight from the oval office, with setting up a top secret war agency for the Allied cause called the Strategic Scientific Reserve,” he said, but didn’t get a chance to say anything else before Howard cut him off.

“But don’t you know, good colonel,” he said, pretending to be scandalized by Colonel Phillips’ remarks, “that the United States is not involved in Europe’s war?”

“Quit it, son,” the colonel said.  “This is serious.  The President himself personally requested for you to be a part of this effort.”

“Well you can tell old Frankie that I’m touched, but not interested,” Howard said.  “I’ve got a much more engaging task ahead of me with Stark Industries.  I can’t abandon my company when it’s not even a year old.”

“You wouldn’t be abandoning it,” Colonel Phillips said.  “Think of this as a side project.”

“A side project?” Howard scoffed.  “Once you military guys get your hands on me, there’s no telling-”

He never got a chance to finish his sentence, because the next second there was gunfire.  The back window of the car shattered, and Howard slammed his foot on the gas.  Colonel Phillips turned around briefly to get a look at their assailants before ducking behind his seat.

“We’re being tailed by HYDRA agents!” he exclaimed.

“Look at the mess you’ve gotten me into,” Howard said.  “Hold on, Colonel.  It’s about to get bumpy.”

Howard swerved down a side road and applied even more pressure to the gas pedal.  He then cut a sharp right and doubled back down a different road, but not only could he not lose the HYDRA agents, but they were gaining on him.

“Do you have a backup plan?” the colonel shouted over the gunfire.

“Of course!” Howard shouted back.  “Lift up the panel on your right armrest.”

The colonel did as he was told and saw a small, yellow button.

“Do you know what this does, Stark?” he asked warily.

“You think I’d trust some two-bit car manufacturer with my safety?” Howard asked.  “I build all my cars myself, and with them add in an extra bit of protection.  Press it, and hurry!”

The colonel slammed his finger down on the button, and out of the back of Howard’s car shot two missiles.  They instantly found their target and engulfed the HYDRA agents and their car in flames.  Howard whooped with glee and let out a big laugh.

“Let’s get out of here, Colonel,” he said, “before I have to explain myself to the fire department, again.”

The two men drove for a minute in silence before Colonel Phillips said, “well, there goes my pitch.”

“Are you kidding me?” Howard exclaimed.  “That was the most fun I’ve had in months!  If this is what being part of your secret government club is like, I’m in.”

“War agency,” the colonel corrected before realizing it wasn’t worth it.  “Glad to have you aboard, Mr. Stark.  Send all of your people and materials back to New York City and meet me with a few days’ worth of clothes tomorrow morning.  My hotel’s up ahead.”

Howard slowed the car down before pulling over to the side of the road and parking in front of the hotel.  Colonel Phillips got out of the car, but before he closed the door said, “and, I don’t suppose you can charter a few people, including yourself, on a flight to Germany tomorrow morning?”

“Already using me for my toys, Colonel?” Howard asked with mock surprise.  “And here I thought you wanted me for my brain.”

“I’ll take that as a yes, Stark,” the colonel said.  “See you tomorrow.”

One of the advantages to running his own company was that when Howard wanted a day off, he didn’t need permission.  Sending the rest of his people back to New York City was surprisingly easy due to the high they were riding from all the donations towards the Vibranium project, and it wasn’t long before his car pulled up in front of Colonel Phillips’ hotel.  The colonel got into the car, and as Howard drove towards the airport the colonel said, “we’re picking up a third person when we get to the airport.  Behave.”

Howard acted offended.  “When have I ever done otherwise?” he asked, not wanting an answer to his question, and Colonel Phillips knew it.  They drove with the radio’s morning news report substituting a conversation, and when the colonel told Howard to pull over, Howard saw a woman in an army jacket, tie, and matching skirt standing on the sidewalk.  

Howard rolled down his window and asked coyly, “Are you looking for a ride?”

The woman rolled her eyes and got in the backseat of the car.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Howard asked as he pulled away from the curb and drove towards the runway.

_ “Agent _ Peggy Carter,” she said sharply.

“Howard Stark,” Howard said, “though you probably knew that already.”

“Unfortunately,” Peggy replied, “and just so we’re clear, this is a highly sensitive mission, so if you’re going to not take it seriously, we can take your plane and leave you on the tarmac.”

Colonel Phillips chuckled to himself, but Howard recovered quickly.

“If this mission is as sensitive as you’re claiming, then I’m the least of your worries, Agent Carter.”

“Only if you continue to prove useful,” she said.  Howard was about to respond, but they’d arrived.  They exited Howard’s car, and after Howard handed the keys over to the valet, warning him that if there was one scratch on his vehicle there’d be hell to pay, the three of them boarded the plane.

Once they were in the air and Howard got himself a drink, Peggy briefed him.

“We’re headed to the Bavarian Alps in Germany,” she said, “where I will be conducting a mission to extract our target from a HYDRA facility named Castle Kaufmann.”

“Who calls their facility a castle?” Howard asked.

“I’m shocked you sound so taken aback by it.  I expected you to have the same tendency towards ostentatiousness.”

Howard said nothing at this, instead taking another sip of his drink.

“You and Colonel Phillips, along with the agent flying this plane, will be near the roof of the facility as the escape vehicle for me and the target,” Peggy continued.  “Once we’re aboard we’ll hopefully make a clean getaway.”

“So, why am I here?” Howard asked.  “Colonel Phillips has enough training to be your backup, but me?  I’m not a combat kind of guy.”

“You’re here as an auxiliary pilot,” Peggy said.  “In the event that-”

“Got it,” Howard said quickly.

“You’re also here to help convince the target to join the SSR,” Colonel Phillips interjected.

“Who is this target, exactly?” Howard asked.

“Dr. Abraham Erskine,” Peggy said.  “A german scientist known for his work-”

“I know Dr. Erskine!” Howard exclaimed.  “I met him at a conference back in ‘34.  We had lots of interesting talks about a serum he was developing.”

“Well, it seems as though HYDRA also has an interest in that serum,” Peggy said.  “Johann Schmidt, current head of HYDRA, kidnapped him and his family in 1935 when they tried to escape Germany.  He’s been a prisoner of HYDRA ever since, but hopefully not for much longer.”

Howard stopped, feeling a lump in his throat.  For five years Abraham had been HYDRA’s prisoner?  No wonder he stopped showing up at conferences.  All the man wanted to do was help his family, like Howard’s parents had done decades ago, and now-

A realization broke through his thoughts.  “You don’t want Dr. Erskine,” he said.  “You want his serum.”

“Excuse me?” Peggy asked.

“How long have you known that he was captured?” he demanded, first looking at Peggy and then turning to Colonel Phillips.  When he got no response he asked again, and still they both remained quiet.

“He was just trying to escape the Nazis and save his family,” Howard continued, “and they captured him for his work, doing who knows what to him and his family in the process.  And now, you want me to convince him to join the SSR?  You’re trying to do the same thing!  You’re using him for the serum he developed.”

Howard couldn’t quite explain why Dr. Erskine’s state affected him so strongly, and any inclinations he had he knew were best left unsaid.  His pause gave Colonel Phillips a chance to interject.

“Son, we’re offering him a life free of captivity,” the colonel said.  “Sure, his serum is a great asset to the United States, but-”

“Would you send in a trained operative to rescue him if he didn’t have that serum?” Howard asked.  He was met with more silence.

“I need another drink,” Howard muttered, leaving through a curtain to go to another section of the plane.  When he returned, it was clear that pressing the subject would be futile.  The most he could do for Dr. Erskine at this point was make sure the extraction mission went smoothly, and fight to protect the scientist’s rights to the serum once he was safely back in the United States.

Hours passed in mostly silence as Howard drifted off into a light sleep.  When they were nearing Castle Kaufmann, Peggy shook him awake and informed him that the mission was beginning within the hour.  Soon, the plane was flying in quiet circles above the roof of the facility, and Peggy had changed into clothes more suitable for a maid than a secret agent.

“Deep cover, agent?” Howard joked.  Peggy sighed.

“Just stick to your part of the mission,” she said, then turning to Colonel Phillips asked, “permission to depart, Colonel?”

“Granted,” the colonel said.  “Good luck, Agent Carter.”

With that, Peggy jumped out of the plane, parachuting down to the facility’s roof.

The minutes that followed Peggy’s departure were tense.  They wouldn’t be able to last more than a few hours circling above the facility, so the plane landed in a nearby secluded area and waited for Peggy’s message that she was nearing the extraction point.  She’d been informed that she had five hours before they assumed her mission had failed and they left without her.  Howard, who’d been banned from getting any more drinks in case he needed to fly the plane, (despite his instance that he flew even better drunk), felt antsy.  After an hour of not talking, he needed to break the silence with some conversation, even with Colonel Phillips.

“Agent Carter, she knows what she’s doing?” he asked.

“She’s the best British Secret Intelligence had to offer us,” the colonel confirmed.  “Been involved in missions certainly more dangerous than this one.  She’ll manage.”

“Really?” Howard asked.  “Like what?”

“That’s classified, son.”

Howard grumbled something about being able to know classified information now that he was in a secret government club, but thought better than enunciating it around the colonel.  He tried a few more times to make conversation with Colonel Phillips, but when the colonel’s responses grew shorter and terser, Howard decided he was no fun and fell back on a surefire way to occupy himself.  He walked around the plane, searching for something, and when he finally found a pad of paper sitting in one of the storage cubbies above the seats, he triumphantly brought it and some pens back to where he’d been sitting.

“Are you… sketching during a mission?” the colonel asked incredulously.

“I’m  _ inventing,” _ Howard corrected.  “You think all those marvels that come off Stark Industries conveyor belts appear out of nowhere?  They come out of here.”  He tapped his right temple with the back of his pen.  “I had a few ideas about how I can fix up this plane when we get back to the States…” and as he trailed off he began to draw up crude schematics, writing mathematical notes in the margins about just how the surface tension on this would work, and just how the air resistance would factor in there, and so on.  He was so engrossed that he almost didn’t hear their two-way radio crackle to life.

“This is Agent Peggy Carter,” came the voice over the radio.  “I have the target and am proceeding, as planned, to the roof.”

Howard let out a cheer and walked away to inform the pilot, missing Colonel Phillips’ look of disapproval at his informality.  In a matter of minutes, they’d flown over the roof and safely extracted both Peggy and Dr. Erskine from Castle Kaufmann.

As he boarded the plane, Dr. Erskine looked thoroughly disoriented.  Peggy ushered him to sit down, assuming he’d had quite a long night, when she heard him mutter, “where’s Stark?”

Peggy and the colonel both looked at Howard, who smiled smugly and walked over to the scientist.

“You just knew I’d be on the team to rescue you?” he asked.

“No,” Dr. Erskine replied, then smiled.  “Your name is on your damn plane.  I suppose that means you did well for yourself, after all.”

Dr. Erskine slept most of the flight back to the United States.  Well into the morning, he finally stirred awake, to see Howard back with his schematics, Peggy reading a book, and the colonel checking the paper.

“Howard,” he said groggily.  It took another two tries to get his attention, but when he did, Howard looked up.  “Do you have any food on this branded plane of yours?”

“Do I!” Howard exclaimed, going to the back through the curtain to get something for his friend.

Ten minutes later, Dr. Erskine was eating English muffins and jam and talking with his three rescuers.

“Johann Schmidt injected himself with all I had of serum,” he explained, “but it wasn’t ready yet.  It mutated him, made him worse.  I don’t want this falling into the wrong hands again.”

“The SSR can protect you, and your serum,” Peggy said.  “We’ll give you creative control over the project, and the means to continue developing it, if you let us use it once it’s finished.”

Dr. Erskine paused, thinking over Peggy’s proposal, before saying, “on the condition that I get to choose the man we inject.  I know how the serum affects people.  I’ll know who the best candidate is.”

“Deal,” Colonel Phillips said.  He and Dr. Erskine shook hands, and then the scientist continued speaking.

“While I was in captivity I was able to better develop my formula, and I think, with the proper facilities, I finally have the means to get it to work.” 

“But how, if you have no more serum?” the colonel asked.

“Everything I need is up here,” Dr. Erskine said, tapping his head.  “I just need a lab to work in.”

“Stark Industries is happy to make that happen,” Howard said.

“Stark Industries?” the scientist questioned.  “You have your own company now?”

“Damn right I do,” Howard said, “and anything you want that we have is yours.  And we have a lot of cool stuff.”

“This is highly sensitive material,” the colonel interrupted.  “It should be housed in a government lab.”

“Does the government have nearly the kind of facilities Stark Industries does?” Howard asked.  “Trick question, it doesn’t.  Security is my middle name, Colonel.  Don’t you worry, this’ll be safe.”

“I trust Mr. Stark,” Dr. Erskine said.  “He’s probably the second most knowledgeable person about the Super Soldier Serum, behind myself.  I’ve never had anyone understand my work half as well as him.”

“Super Soldier Serum?” Howard laughed.  “Bet you’re happy I didn’t copyright that one.”

Dr. Erskine ignored him.

“We’ve already got housing set up for you in New York City, doctor,” the colonel said.  “As soon as we land, an SSR agent will show you to your apartment.”

Months passed like eyeblinks.  As Dr. Erskine worked in one of Stark Industries’ top labs, continuing to develop his Super Soldier Serum, the United States went to war.  Not wanting to look unpatriotic, Stark Industries began to develop a new line of fighter jets for the Air Force, and soon, its founder was approached once again by the government.  This time, they were looking to split the atom and weaponize the energy, and they wanted Howard Stark on their team.

“The Manhattan Project?” Howard said, looking over the proposal.  “Sounds fancy.  Well, boys, if you’re looking to do the impossible, you’ve come to the right place.”

However, Howard served more as a consultant than a designer or engineer on the Manhattan Project, much to his dismay.  He’d later go on to call Robert Oppenheimer a good friend and a “know-it-all who had to do everything himself” in the same sentence.  However, his underuse on the Manhattan Project gave him more time to help Dr. Erskine develop the Super Soldier Serum.  He often spent hours in the lab helping the scientist think through seemingly insurmountable issues.  Dr. Erskine was also the only person he felt comfortable talking about his parents in front of.

“My mama used to tell me the same five bedtime stories,” he said with a laugh, one day in 1942.  It was clear at that point that the serum was nearing completion.  “She had tons, but she only liked five.  Most of them were about my grandparents, who I never met, but her favorite was about the Golem of Prague.  Did you ever hear that one?”

“The one about the clay man who protected the Jews in Prague?” Dr. Erskine asked, not looking up from his work.

“Yeah, that one.  She loved it.  She used to change how the Golem came to life every time she told it.  I started to believe that Golems could come to life any way if you just willed it.”

He paused, looking at Dr. Erskine carefully reviewing their notes from the tests they’d performed on the serum that morning.

“You think a Golem could come to life if you injected it with a serum?” Howard asked.

“I suppose, with a bit of Divine Intervention, anything’s possible.”

“Well, my mama would call what we’re doing here the work of Rebbes anyway,” Howard said.  “She’d be amazed by the kinds of things Stark Industries churns out.  She always wanted me to study Torah.  Maybe this is a close second.”

Howard stopped, temporarily lost in thoughts of his mother, before saying, “what we’re doing, it isn’t much different than what that Rebbe in Prague did.  I joked to Colonel Phillips about calling this The Brooklyn Project, you know, give those Manhattan Project guys a scare that something bigger is coming to overshadow them, but y’know what might be better?  Project Rebirth.  Just like the legend says: we’re giving something new life.”

Just days after their conversation, Dr. Erskine told Colonel Phillips that they could start looking for a candidate for Project Rebirth.  They scoured recruiting stations, looking for the lucky young man to be Dr. Erskine’s first patient, but the scientist rejected every man suggested to him.

“I need someone who I know has the right intentions,” he would say.  “Someone who understands morality.”

“This is a war, doctor,” the colonel would say.  “There isn’t any morality.”

“Well, maybe it’s time to bring some in.”

Stark Industries, on top of producing more planes for the Air Force, again began to entertain Howard’s boredom.  By 1943, he’d developed a hovering car he was comfortable demonstrating, and set up a show at the Modern Marvels of Tomorrow exhibition right in his own New York City backyard.  By now, he knew how to work a crowd, and once the audience was safely in his pocket, he began.

“Ladies and gentlemen, what if I told you that in just a few short years, your automobile won't even have to touch the ground at all?  With Stark robotic reversion technology, you'll be able to do just that.”

He flipped a switch on the panel next to him, and the car on the stage began to hover.  Just as he was sure the audience was about to clap in awe, the panels in place of the car’s wheels shorted out, and the car crashed into the stage.  Howard chuckled, not missing a beat.

“I did say a few years, didn't I?”

Once both he and the car were off the stage, Howard went to go take one of the panels off the car and examine what went wrong.  However, he was stopped by one of the aids working with Dr. Erskine at their army recruiting station.

“Mr. Stark!” the young man shouted, looking as if he’d run all the way from the station.  “Dr. Erskine thinks he found the right man for Project Rebirth.”

“Well,” Howard said with a smile, “isn’t it that boy’s lucky day.”

Howard Stark didn’t meet Steve Rogers until the day of the operation, but he still had a lot to say when he saw his picture days before the procedure.

“Are you kidding me?” he cried, looking at scrawny Steve, barely over five feet tall and looking like he could snap in half in a strong wind.  “He doesn’t even fit in that army uniform!  Do the uniforms even have extra small sizes?”

“See, I told you,” said Colonel Phillips to Dr. Erskine.  “I can get Hodge up here in ten minutes for inspection.”

“You, quiet,” Dr. Erskine said to the colonel.  He then turned to Howard.

“We’re making a Golem, aren’t we, Mr. Stark?” Dr. Erskine asked with a smile.  “I need good clay to start.  Clay that can handle Hashem’s holy name.  That boy, he can handle it.”

“You don’t think the procedure will kill him?” Howard asked.

“Not if we’re careful.”

For years, Project Rebirth had a been a fantasy in the minds of the army, and the minds Abraham and Howard, but one day in 1943, it became a reality.  As Howard went around performing checks on his equipment in the SSR’s secret Brooklyn laboratory, Steve Rogers walked in the door, standing inches shorter than Agent Carter, and looking like a scared lab rat.  In a sense, he probably was.

As Steve settled into the infusion pod, and Howard performed the last of the checks, Dr. Erskine called out to him.

“Mr. Stark, how are your levels?”

“Levels at 100%,” Howard said, walking over to get a better look at his test subject.  The boy was pale as milk and looked like he could use a real meal, or ten.  “We may dim half the lights in Brooklyn, but we are ready… as we’ll ever be.”

He then walked back to his station, unable to keep looking at Steve.  If this kid didn’t make it because of something he’d helped develop, he wasn’t sure how he was going to stand it.

Dr. Erskine’s microphone gave a bit of feedback, and he began to address the officers and politicians in the booth.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “today we take not another step towards annihilation, but the first step on the path to peace. We begin with a series of microinjections…”

As Dr. Erskine spoke, Howard reviewed his station.  He was the best person there was when it came to dealing with vita rays, so he was responsible for pummeling Steve with them until the serum worked to its fullest potential.

“Now, Mr. Stark,” Dr. Erskine said.

Howard flipped a switch and Steve’s pod closed and lifted him up to the appropriate angle.  Once he’d turned a series of dials and put on his protective sunglasses, he began to saturate the pod with vita rays.

“That’s 10%... 20%... 30%...”

He made it to 70% before Steve started screaming.  He kept the level steady at 70%, feeling his heart race.  He couldn’t kill this kid, even in the name of science and progress.

“Kill it!  Kill the reactor!” Dr. Erskine shouted.  Howard went to do exactly that when they both heard, “no!” coming from the pod.  To his amazement, Howard realized Steve was telling them to continue.

“No!” he said.  “I can do this!”

Shocked, but not willing to let him change his mind, Howard went back to the vita ray dial and continued to increase the level.

“80… 90… that’s 100%.”

All the machinery in the room started sparking.  Things were beginning to short circuit, but the vita ray machine held on.  Then suddenly, it all died down.  The procedure was over.

Howard felt his breath stop along with everyone else’s in the room as the pod opened.  He lowered his sunglasses to get a better look, and out stepped Steve Rogers, not the skinny kid that had walked into the laboratory, but a huge, muscled soldier.  He was at least a foot taller and three times as big.

Coming to his senses, Howard helped Dr. Erskine help Steve out of the pod.  He was breathing heavily and looked fatigued, but was, overall, alive.

“We did it,” Steve muttered.  

“Yeah, we did,” Dr. Erskine said.

“You actually did it,” Howard muttered, looking in awe at Dr. Erskine’s work finally coming to fruition after all these years.

This was a man who could protect the United States.  This was nothing short of a Divine miracle.

“Danken Gott,” he muttered, quiet enough for no one but him to hear it.  Usually his parents’ Yiddish felt odd pass through his lips, but right now nothing seemed more appropriate.  “Guess I’m a Rebbe now, Mama.  Just like you always wanted.”


End file.
